Some starting questions from a newbie

[Christian_R]

Hello,

I'm concidering buying Ableton Live or Ableton Suite, but I have some very simple quiestions first:

1) Can I use my PC keyboard to record MIDI, or do I have to buy a new MIDI keyboard and connect it to my PC? I played a little bit with GarageBand some weeks ago, and I liked that it's possible to record without having to buy a MIDI keyboard (at least not right now). I soon found out that GarageBand was very limited, but it did introduce me to a new way of making music

2) What is really the difference between Ableton Live and Ableton Suite? Do I really "need" Ableton Suite? Since I have decided to buy a good music software, I might as well buy the best one, if I need it of course. I'm going to make electronic music like Deadmau5, Crookers, Dudty Kid, Justice etc.

3) Must I have a "super PC" to run it? My PC is one year old, with 1 GB ram or more, so I think it should do. I have Windows 7 (64 bit).

4) Is it difficult to learn? As I said, I have a little bit experience with GarageBand on Mac, witch I thought was very easy to learn.


More questions might pop up later, but these are the most important questions for me right now

[ark]

1) Can I use my PC keyboard to record MIDI, or do I have to buy a new MIDI keyboard and connect it to my PC? I played a little bit with GarageBand some weeks ago, and I liked that it's possible to record without having to buy a MIDI keyboard (at least not right now). I soon found out that GarageBand was very limited, but it did introduce me to a new way of making music

You can use your PC keyboard, or the mouse. However, you won't have any velocity sensitivity, and playing a PC keyboard is much harder than playing a real MIDI keyboard. That's what happens when you try to play music on a typewriter keyboard, and has nothing to do with Live.

2) What is really the difference between Ableton Live and Ableton Suite? Do I really "need" Ableton Suite? Since I have decided to buy a good music software, I might as well buy the best one, if I need it of course. I'm going to make electronic music like Deadmau5, Crookers, Dudty Kid, Justice etc.

Suite is Live + a bunch of instruments: Operator, Sampler, Collision, Analog, Tension, and so on. An instrument is something that converts MIDI to audio. If you already have a bunch of VST soft synths, you may not need any more. You can buy individual instruments rather than getting them all as part of Suite, but it will be more expensive.

3) Must I have a "super PC" to run it? My PC is one year old, with 1 GB ram or more, so I think it should do. I have Windows 7 (64 bit).

With 1 GB, you will probably benefit from adding more memory. Memory is cheap.

4) Is it difficult to learn? As I said, I have a little bit experience with GarageBand on Mac, witch I thought was very easy to learn.

Live is not terribly complicated, though it has a lot of stuff in it. The documentation is excellent. The hard part is figuring out what you want to do, and how to use Live's facilities to achieve it.

[nylarch]

Get the regular version of Live and use free VST's for your instruments (pick up a copy of Computer Music magazine and you're good to go). Use the regular version for a year or so until you figure out what you're doing.

Buy Sampler. Learn it for a year or so and sample your heart out.

After you're comfortable with Sampler buy Operator. Learn to program it.

This is a more expensive route but you'll get more done. Suite will be overkill if you're just starting.

[Christian_R]

3) Must I have a "super PC" to run it? My PC is one year old, with 1 GB ram or more, so I think it should do. I have Windows 7 (64 bit).

With 1 GB, you will probably benefit from adding more memory. Memory is cheap.
[/quote
OK, I can fiz that! But is it a problem that I have Windows 7 - 64 bit? I think I might have read that somewhere.

[davepermen]

no problem, should work fine.

[Pyro Z]

+1 for Ark's post

It's odd that a one year old PC would have 1GB of RAM....only netbooks have that these days....what are some of the other specs?

You really should have 2-3GB minimum, especially with Vista/7 64-bit, but it's certainly possible to run with less.

I like the way Ark put it, but I'll say it like this....it's really easy to get things done in Live, but it takes a while to learn how to do what you want. If your tracks are clipping, yet you need them to be louder, Compressor's controls are simple, easy to use, and mappable to pretty much any button/control your heart desires.....but what is Compressor? How do you use it? What settings should it be at? What is RMS? These questions take longer to answer and require experimentation and experience.

Congrats on getting live, btw.

[Christian_R]

You really should have 2-3GB minimum, especially with Vista/7 64-bit, but it's certainly possible to run with less.

Maybe I have more, I will check it out

Can't wait to get my hands on this program, it will be sweet! But if I buy Ableton Live first, is it possible to upgrade to Ableton Suite later? Or anything else, so that I can get more instruments?

[UKRuss]

Yes.

Anyway, you know you can trial the whole lot for 30 days free anyway right?

Just DL it and start having a fiddle! Read the manual in your spare time.

[Christian_R]

I have now checked my PC, and this is my specifications:
Windows 7 Ultimate - 64 bit
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU - E8500 @ 3.16GHz 3,17 GHz
4 GB RAM
Asus GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB PhysX CUDA

Is my soundcard good enough?

And are you sure that it will run with Windows 7 64 bit? Under "System requirements" (http://www.ableton.com/live-8) it only lists XP and Vista...

[ark]

This should ease your mind about Windows 7. You have 4 GB of RAM, not 1 GB, and that should be more than adequate for Live. A 3.16 GHz dual-core processor should be more than enough to get lots done with Live as well. Please note that Live is not currently a native 64-bit application, so adding more RAM beyond 4 GB is likely not to help much, if at all.

As for whether your sound card is good enough, I don't know: You've described your CPU, your graphics card, your operating system, and your memory, but not your sound card. The main question is whether Live will be able to drive it with low enough latency, which will depend on which specific drivers it supports.

[HeadrickProductions]

like someone said just buy ableton live. Coming from garage band (which I am not very familiar with) you might not mind the ableton live suite instruments....but as I progressed I felt that they lacked alot of sound quality. I am sure some people will jump in quickly to correct me but it is just the way I felt. synth 1 is a great free vst that can do alot of things that operator can do. The nice thing about suite is if you are using ableton rewire into another hosts that you can use the suite bundle, but can't use VST's

Just my opinion, like folks said you can always upgrade...but money is better spent on hardware

[Pyro Z]

Yes.

Anyway, you know you can trial the whole lot for 30 days free anyway right?

Just DL it and start having a fiddle! Read the manual in your spare time.

This.

And are you sure that it will run with Windows 7 64 bit? Under "System requirements" (http://www.ableton.com/live-8) it only lists XP and Vista...

You bet ya. I'm running Live in the background on Windows 7 64-bit as I type this.

That's quite a PC you got there. It should make an excellent DAW if it is set-up right. Hakuna matata!

[Christian_R]

Yes.

Anyway, you know you can trial the whole lot for 30 days free anyway right?

Just DL it and start having a fiddle! Read the manual in your spare time.

This.

And are you sure that it will run with Windows 7 64 bit? Under "System requirements" (http://www.ableton.com/live-8) it only lists XP and Vista...

You bet ya. I'm running Live in the background on Windows 7 64-bit as I type this.

That's quite a PC you got there. It should make an excellent DAW if it is set-up right. Hakuna matata!

Cool! Then I'm gonna be an Ableton'er in a couple of weeks

But what is DAW? hehe

[Christian_R]

But what is DAW? hehe

DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation and basically refers to the software and the things it does.

Wikipedia - which is one google search away </hint> - has a whole article about it.

I see, thanks!

Just ordered Suite 8 now

[Christian_R]

1) Can I use my PC keyboard to record MIDI, or do I have to buy a new MIDI keyboard and connect it to my PC? I played a little bit with GarageBand some weeks ago, and I liked that it's possible to record without having to buy a MIDI keyboard (at least not right now). I soon found out that GarageBand was very limited, but it did introduce me to a new way of making music

You can use your PC keyboard, or the mouse. However, you won't have any velocity sensitivity, and playing a PC keyboard is much harder than playing a real MIDI keyboard. That's what happens when you try to play music on a typewriter keyboard, and has nothing to do with Live.

OK! I will buy a MIDI keyboard eventually, but until then I'm afraid I have to play on my PC keyboard.

But how do I get to use my PC keyboard as MIDI keyboard? Can I scroll through different MIDI sounds and test-play them on my PC keyboard before I start recording? (like GarageBand)

Probably a stupid quiestion, but I have to start somewhere